Every year, thousands of men in the US visit emergency rooms due to priapism, a painful condition characterized by an erection that lasts too long and poses a risk of permanent damage to the penis. Your penis gets hard and enlarged during an erection due to an increase in blood flow.
According to the researchers’ estimates, hospitals spend an average of $124 million annually treating priapism.
Dr. Daniel Stein, the chief resident in the urology department at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, stated: “It’s not a major issue, but it’s more prevalent than we initially believed.”
Little information
Uncertainty surrounds the proportion of the estimated 10,000 cases per year that can be attributed to a side effect of Viagra and other similar impotence medications, but urologists report seeing very few men experience the notorious erections lasting more than four hours, as advertised on television.
In actuality, sickle cell disease cases might be substantially higher.
According to Stein, the reason the researchers started their investigation was the paucity of data regarding priapism cases, which has gained increased attention in light of the warnings associated with impotence medications in recent years.
Painful
According to Stein, prurism is the term for an irregular erection in which the blood that enlarges the penis does not flow out.
Because the penis isn’t receiving enough oxygen, the blood becomes stagnant and the tissue starts to die.
” The response remains even though the mood has changed,” he stated.
It’s extremely excruciating. Every male patient complaining of priapism is not happy about it.”
Researchers looked at a database of US ER visits from 2006 to 2009 for the new study. They calculated that ER physicians treat 10,000 cases of priapism annually on average, based on their statistics; it’s unclear how many of these cases involve men who required multiple treatments.
For patients treated in the emergency room, the average hospital cost was approximately $1,800; for those who needed to be hospitalized, it was close to $42,000.
Treating a case
Additionally, sickle cell disease, which causes distorted red blood cells, affected 21% of the patients overall.
According to Dr. Stephen Freedland, an associate professor of surgery and pathology at Duke University School of Medicine and urologist, the condition may cause the blood in the penis to thicken and become uncontrollable.
Although there may be an average of one case of priapism per week at his clinic, Freedland said he cannot immediately recall treating a case caused by an erectile dysfunction drug such as Viagra.
According to Stein, the study’s author, the medications can occasionally result in erections that are too prolonged by increasing blood flow to the penis.
According to Freedland, injecting oneself to get an erection is another potential cause for impotent men.
Stein added that occasionally there isn’t even a clear cause.
There is treatment available for pruritus. The bad news is that comfort is not a hallmark of the treatments. According to Stein, a blood sample is obtained from the penis to verify if a patient has priapism.
Fresh blood
Usually, the next step is to try to flush out the stagnant blood by inserting a needle into the penis.
According to him, if that doesn’t work, doctors might try flushing the blood once more before doing a procedure that involves cutting the penis to release the blood.
According to Freedland, the patient may also receive oxygen and new blood cells to help the healing process along.
In The Journal of Sexual Medicine, the study was published.
